Delivering fast boot times in Windows 8 … Few operations in Windows are as scrutinized, measured, and picked apart as boot. This is understandable—boot times represent an effective proxy for overall system performance and we all know the boot experience is an incredibly important thing for us to get right for customers.

The Logged Out User (continued) — I brought this subject up a while back. It's a big one that doesn't get enough attention. — And yesterday we got some stats from Twitter that I'd like to talk about. Dick Costolo gave a “state of Twitter” press conference yesterday at Twitter HQ.

Yes, Carol Bartz had a non-disparagement clause — Did ex-Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz just forfeit $10 million by calling fellow board members “doofuses”? — FORTUNE — Fortune today published an explosive interview with Carol Bartz, who on Tuesday was fired as Yahoo CEO after 32 months on the job.

Facebook Begins Auto-Grouping Friends Into Smart Lists — You've got 500-something friends, all of about 50 you really interact with. You went to school with Lucy and Henry, you've worked with Mike for years, and Joe lives just down the block. Facebook knows all of this …

Apple website gets a revamp, new iPad shopping wizard — With the Apple Store going down over the past few hours , Apple has brought its website back online with a new and improved interfaces on its product pages, specifically adapting the iPad ordering process to make it easier to choose the model that is right for you.

Google Mapping a way to the top — Lars Rasmussen confesses that he doesn't have much of a sense of direction. But that didn't stop him creating Google Maps, one of the world's leading tech success stories of the past decade. — In a recent trip back to Australia, where Google Maps was born …

Twitter Selects Edelman As Its First PR Agency — SAN FRANCISCO—Twitter has concluded the hunt for its first PR agency by hiring Edelman, the Holmes Report can reveal. — The social media giant is understood to have appointed Edelman to handle a short-term project, focused on some specific upcoming consumer launches.

Anonymous group releases new Twitter tool — Anonymous has released a new tool designed to let its messages ride the coattails of trending topics on Twitter. — The Anonymous group of online activists released a new tool today designed to allow people to hijack trending topics on Twitter and tweet messages within them.

Zagat's Price: Under $66 Million — A few years ago, Zagat was trying to shop itself around for $200 million. Today, Google bought it for less than $66 million. The price wasn't disclosed, but there was no FTC antitrust review, which is automatically triggered by any deal worth $66 million or more.

Google Details, and Defends, Its Use of Electricity — Google disclosed Thursday that it continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes, but it says that in doing so, it also makes the planet greener. — Every time a person runs a Google search, watches a YouTube video or sends …

“Do Not Track” standards for the Web: The work is starting. — by Nick Doty and Thomas Roessler. — Since we published the Web Tracking Protection member submission in February, and since the Workshop on Web tracking and User Privacy in late April, the conversation about Do Not Track has come a long way.

What's wrong with the Twitter API — I want to make something clear from the start: I love Twitter, though sometimes I wonder if I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome. I have devoted much of the last three years of my life to working with the Twitter API and continue to pursue building …

Microsoft's online services hit by outage — Several of Microsoft's online services suffered an outage on Thursday but are reportedly all back up at this point. — The company's Office 365, Hotmail, SkyDrive, and various Windows Live services were down throughout the world for a period of around three hours.

Fring tries to one-up Google Hangouts with Playgrounds — One of the better features of Google+ is Hangouts, in my opinion. It's a quick, easy way to have a drop-in video chat experience with either a tightly focused or broad group of people. Now VoIP and video chat service Fring …

Samsung: We're not buying MeeGo — Samsung Electronics said it isn't buying MeeGo. In fact, it says it couldn't even if it wanted to. — “Meego is an open source project which can not be a target of acquisition,” Samsung representative James Chung told CNET today.